


Wouldn't Miss It

by GoodHunterAnais



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Goodbyes, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8938501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodHunterAnais/pseuds/GoodHunterAnais
Summary: They conquered superweapons, Sith lords, and themselves. They forged a friendship that would change the galaxy. Their names became legend. Now, bowed and broken, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are each slinking away into exile—but not before one last goodbye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Something that's been eating at both me and my friend Nate is that we never got to see a proper farewell between Luke and Han before the latter's untimely demise. I set out to fix that, in my own probably-too-schmaltzy/possibly-too-angsty way.

_"Together again, huh?”_

_"Wouldn't miss it.”_

_“How we doing?”_

_“Same as always . . .”_

_“That bad, huh?”_

* * *

 

The old man straps the gunbelt across his hips, frowns, tightens it slightly. Damn thing has gotten loose since the last time he put it on. He tells himself losing the weight around his waist isn't the worst thing that could have happened, but there's a sour taste lingering on his tongue as he adjusts the belt again. It's as if he's more fragile since the last time he wore it. Hollowed out.

He'd checked the DL-44 pistol before he holstered it and donned the whole apparatus. Switched out the power pack for a new one, taken a practice look down the scope, hefted it back and forth. Picked up a cloth and tried to polish some of the shine back into the muzzle. Nearly three decades he's had it now, a replacement for the old one that had ended up clutched in Vader's glove.

Of the two of them, the sidearm has aged better.

Chewie appears in the doorway, growls softly. Han nods. “Yeah, yeah. Almost ready.”

Another growl, this one bearing a distinct flavor of _Get a move on, if you're going to make us do this._

“Easy for you to say, you big furball,” Han mutters, giving up on getting the gunbelt to fit any better. “Only thing you're taking is a crossbow.” He checks his jacket pockets one last time. It's not so much that he's checking for what's there as reassuring himself what  _isn't_ there. No commlink. No code cylinders. No credits. None of the things that he's allowed to float into his orbit, that others have used to try to make Han Solo something he's known for all this time he can never be.

“Okay,” he says, and strides to the door without looking up at the Wookiee. “Let's get moving.” He hears the sound of padded footsteps behind him, the scent of matted fur following a few feet from his back.

He finds it hard to look at Chewie lately, sometimes. He's known his first mate for going on forty years, and in all that time the Wookiee hasn't aged. Hasn't slowed, hasn't greyed, hasn't stooped. When all this is over—and Han's realized lately that when he thinks  _all this_ , he's thinking of himself, as if it's no longer possible to pull him and the damned war apart—Chewie will probably still be standing unchanged, unscathed. Whereas Han has been slowly dying in front of Chewie's eyes ever since they met. Hair fading, face furrowing, draw getting just a little slower. And all that was happening even before— _him_ .

From behind him, an inquisitive snort.

“No,” he replies. “No, I don't want to say goodbye to Threepio. The twerp will be glad to see both our backs.”

Threepio. Yet another nattering, ceaseless symbol of the infinite. When the stars burn out, the protocol droid will still be dithering away, trying to blame it all on someone else and cowering behind a blue astromech.

For a moment, Han feels almost wistful. There's a bit of comfort in the idea.

* * *

The hangar is yawning and empty when human and Wookiee enter. No support staff, no droids. No cameras—Han personally cut the wires to the things earlier in the night. No word will be getting back to Senator Organa that an unsanctioned departure is transpiring. Not until it's too late for even her stubbornness to do anything about it.

The sour taste in Han's mouth deepens at the sight of the ship he and Chewie will be making their exit in. He's never liked the B-wings—ungainly, sluggish things, and the gyroscopic cockpit is more trouble than it will ever be worth.  _It's_ space _,_ he'd grumbled to Wedge upon seeing the things all lined up prior to departing for the Forest Moon,  _there_ is _no up or down to stay aligned with._ He and his co-pilot won't be keeping this craft for long—as soon as Han has arranged for new transport, he'll set the thing on autopilot and scuttle it. Leia can send him the bill, if she wants to.

“Okay,” he says to Chewie, “get her primed for go. I'm gonna go make sure everything's clear to get the hell out of here.”

His footfalls echo in the vastness, the noise almost making him want to cringe even though he knows no one else is here. The starfighter's engines begin a low purr, muting the  _clack_ of sole on floor a little, and Han tries to free himself from the tension that's pulling his body tight as he approaches the control console on the far wall. He swipes his thumb across the identipad, begins moving down the checklist.  _Shields are down. Lock on the fighter is disabled. Motion alert is off . . ._

“You know, I believe it's a federal crime to steal Republic military property.”

He whirls around, hand already dropping to the DL-44—he's set it to stun in case any random security people were to wander into the hangar—only to find it isn't there. His eyes catch movement just in time to watch it hurtle several yards and land in a black-gloved hand.

It's him.

Han just stands there, staring for several seconds longer than he can afford to stare without embarrassment. “What do you mean, steal?” he finally blusters. “I  _am_ Republic military. In fact, you're committing a federal crime by stealing an officer's sidearm.”

The robed form strides forward, coming into clearer definition through the shadows. “Last time I checked—several years ago, I'll confess—most of the illicit modifications to that sidearm make possessing it a felony. And it's not an officer's sidearm. You resigned your commission tonight before sneaking out.”

More staring. “Is this some new kind of Jedi mind game I haven't heard of, or—”

“Artoo,” Luke says quietly as he draws near enough that Han can see his face. “Has his ways.”

Once again, Han feels the urge to drop his gaze, but not because of the comparative youth of what he's looking at. If he's aged years in the last weeks, Luke has aged a decade.

The Corellian turns back to the control panel, begins punching icons at random. “Look, kid, I'm just borrowing the ship. Leia can have it back whenever she—”

“Han.”

Ever since Endor, there's something in that voice that compels response. The quiet, almost desperate sadness that every so often will let through just enough of the old farmboy grin to make it worse. If Han didn't know better, he might think it's some variant of what old man Kenobi had practiced, but Luke isn't the kind to use his power just to maintain an audience. It's just who he is.

What the Force has driven him to become.

Slowly, former General Solo turns around, looks at the old man whom he still thinks of as all of nineteen years old. “Listen, kid. It's better for everyone. Leia doesn't want me here.”

“She  _needs_ you here, Han.”

“Look,  _Master Jedi_ ,” Han snaps, something smoky rising up behind his eyes. He wants the other man to flinch, and when he doesn't the anger increases. “You might be able to read minds, but she's my wife. I know what she wants and what she doesn't.”

“I didn't say  _want_ . I said  _need_ .”

_You haven't seen her eyes_ , Han wants to say.  _The way it hurts her—physically hurts her—to look at me. The way she doesn't want to be alone in a room with me anymore._ Instead he just shakes his head and mutters, “She only sees him now. I'm a reminder.”

“And you think I'm not?”

Han closes the distance between the two of them, hoping his greater height will restore some authority to his position. “I'm going, Luke.” He grabs the handgrip of his blaster, yanks it from the mechanical hand's grasp. “Leia will have you and Threepio to look after her. She got by that way once, she'll manage again.”

“Actually,” Luke says. “She won't.”

“What are you talking about?”

The Jedi looks into Han's eyes, the pain in his own such a mirror of Leia's it makes the Corellian's chest ache. “ _I'm_ going.”

Han takes a step back. Is silent for a second. “Going?”

A nod.

“Going where?”

“Ben talked to me again.”

For a moment—just a moment—the Corellian's heart is seized by a great fist, and he opens his mouth to ask why, how,  _where is his boy_ —but then he realizes what's actually being said, and he hates Luke for that brief instant of hope.

He shakes his head, growls. This doesn't make any damn sense. “I thought you hadn't heard from Kenobi in years.”

Luke shakes his head. “I hadn't. Still haven't, really. He's so faint I almost can't hear him. But I know what he wants me to do. I have to go back to where it all began. Search for answers.”

The fury wells up again, and Han feels a terrible urge to smash the deathly calm face in front of him with the butt of his blaster, to  _make_ his old friend react. “Oh, I see. Leave, is what you mean. Desert. Run away to Dagobah all over again while all of us who actually care whether you live or die get to be chess pieces in some wizards'  _game_ .”

“Han.”

“Nothing new, I guess. You did it. Kenobi did it before you. Hell, it's practically a Jedi tradition, pulling the entire damned galaxy into their mess and then running for the hills to let all the rest of us pick up the pieces.”

“Han.”

“You son of a bitch. You self-righteous, unfeeling—”

“ _Han_ .”

“ _What?!_ ”

When Luke speaks again, it's barely above a whisper. “I  _failed_ , you understand? You're right, I'm doing exactly what Ben did. Because I let the same things  _happen_ that he did.”

His voice remains steady, but when the light catches his eyes again Han freezes. There are tears there, and redness, and sheer, utter  _emptiness_ . The spark that was Luke Skywalker, the pilot's adrenaline gleam, the joker's mischief that never entirely vanished even after Bespin—it's gone.

“It's not up to me anymore. But it could still be up to you.” He pauses for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is as calm as it was five minutes ago. “It wasn't a teacher that saved my father. It wasn't the Force, it wasn't some miracle.” He exhales deeply, as if breathing out a lifetime of detritus and foundations powdered to ash. Looks away. Looks at Han again. “It was  _family_ .”

For a moment, in spite of himself, all Han wants to do is to embrace the kid-turned-ancient-one. To comply, to say that yes, we'll figure it out together, same as always, we'll stage a rescue mission just like we do best, we'll get the kid back from Snoke and it'll have turned out to be one long nightmare, something he was forced to do against his will. We'll pick up the pieces like we always have. You'll find new students. The kid will come home to be with his mother. Threepio will fuss over him, Chewie will wrestle him until he laughs, Lando will bring some cards and we'll have a game. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that when Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have each other's backs, even emperors can't stand against them.

But then the distant B-wing's purr flares into a roar, and the dream is carried off into the wind.

Han swallows, does his best to hold the Jedi's gaze. “The universe is a cycle, kid. I've flown from one side of it to the other, and the more I look the more the same damn things keep happening no matter what I do. I figure it's time I stop trying to turn the machine off and just ride it out. Til my luck runs out.”

The kid says nothing for a long time. Just looks at Han. And in that look are both deep despair and deep love.

_In the end_ , Han imagines him thinking,  _he's just Han Solo after all. I can't blame him. He was made this way._

Luke clears his throat. “Well,” he says. “Take care of yourself, Han. If your luck runs out, I've a feeling the rest of us aren't far behind.”

The Corellian tries to force a semblance of his old lopsided smirk to manifest itself. “Thought you said there was no such thing.”

“Oh, Ben had his doubts,” the Jedi says, trying himself to form the ghost of a farmboy grin. “But then, even with the Force I doubt he could have outpiloted Darth Vader through an asteroid field.”

“Now, that wasn't luck. That was pure, unadulterated talent.”

When the other man embraces Han, the Corellian is shaken by the feeling that courses through him. He's still the older brother, the one that the youngster has moved beyond but will never be able to stop looking up to. And the kid is still the snotnose brat who's always underfoot but still proves his worth, in the end.

For the first time in he doesn't know how long, Han is a young man again.

And then it ends, as he knows it must. And he's Ben Solo's father once more.

“Luke,” he says, and attempts one last lopsided grin, this one with a hint of the old fire about it even as that fire fades into embers. “May the Force be with you.”

* * *

Chewie grumbles about what took him so long, Captain, as Han slides into the pilot's seat, the Wookiee shimmying into the gunner's chair. “Oh, stop complaining,” Han replies. “There was an extra lock I had to disable. If I hadn't, there'd be pieces of us bouncing across the deck.”

The fighter rises from the deck, reorients its thrusters. Han eases it out, nice and slow. Don't want to go too fast and attract the attention of Hosnian air patrol.

Without warning, a klaxon begins sounding. “Proximity alert,” Han tells his co-pilot. “Another ship exiting the hangar.”

He turns to the starboard viewport, and there it is, a battered old T-65 X-wing with strips of red paint fading along its sides. It hangs there in the sky, keeping pace with the Corellian's stolen getaway transport.

Han can't see into the other ship's cockpit, but he could swear there's a winking face there, the face of a moisture farmer just about to do something incredibly stupid in incredible style.

He closes his eyes, as he often does these days. Grips the control stick. Sinks into the leather of the chair. And for a moment—the briefest of moments—he hears the hum of the  _Falcon_ 's engines.

“Punch it, Chewie,” he barks.

And then they're soaring in perfect unison, two ships hurtling through the atmosphere at ungodly speed, the stress on their hulls causing groaning and shaking as if they're about to come to pieces. They punch through traffic lanes, through planetary levels, and the air patrol is scrambling but there's no chance now, no chance at all, that they'll catch the individuals responsible. The ships break atmosphere, break the planetary gravity well, side by side in a moment that stretches, and stretches, and stretches—

—until, as it must, it crashes to a glorious finish. One ship veers toward an infinity, the other toward its own. There's a roar of engines, a blaze of starlines, and the two ships in an instant are far, far away . . . .

 


End file.
